


leave a light on

by chidorinnn



Series: peregrinate [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Permanent Injury, Protective Varric Tethras, Varric Tethras waxes poetic about Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 18:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16859062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: “It’s different for us, you see,” says Anders, and byus, Varric knows immediately that this will turn into yet anothermagething. “There’s an entire group of people whose notice we have to avoid. Not doing so isn’t an option.”“So you make fools of yourselves until they look the other way?” Varric asks.“We do what we must,” Anders says, “until they look the other way."





	leave a light on

The first time Varric sees the routine, it nearly leaves him in stitches. It goes like this, upon running into the Knight Captain on one of their many, many errands: Hawke staggers, leaning into her staff as her brow pinches together into an expression of acute discomfort. Carver lets out an almighty yell as he charges forward and hacks away at the abomination before them with perhaps a bit more vigor than is entirely necessary. Then, when it’s over, he runs back to her and cries out: “Sister! Are you all right?”

It’s all so damn  _dramatic_  — Carver treating his sister like she’s something that will not survive without his protection, and Hawke pretending to be made of glass — but the Knight Captain buys it, and they break character as soon as he’s gone.

Hawke’s fine, of course. Her bad leg is more of an inconvenience than an actual handicap — which, by definition, perhaps means that it  _is_  a handicap after all, just one that she can work through — but once the initial hilarity of the situation wears off, Varric sits back and thinks for a long moment.

What if something  _had_  been seriously wrong?

* * *

Hawke is not made of glass, despite the image she sometimes likes to project. Varric knows this, because he’s seen her fight. He’s seen her take down more than one abomination, barely flinch at the apostates-turned-serial killers she’s volunteered to hunt down, brush off injuries from traps she’d walked into before he could disarm them for her. He’s seen her turn the sky itself into her own personal weapon, calling down lightning both natural and magical to smite her enemies — and yet, she always falls back on the “poor injured woman” act when Templars are involved.

“So you’ve finally noticed!” Anders says good-naturedly, clapping him on the shoulder one night when Varric tells him as much, after bringing him a hot meal directly to his clinic. “It’s different for us, you see,” he says, and by  _us_ , Varric knows immediately that Anders will turn this into yet another  _mage_  thing. “There’s an entire group of people whose notice we have to avoid. Not doing so isn’t an option.”

“So you make fools of yourselves until they look the other way?” Varric asks.

“We do what we must,” Anders says, “until they look the other way. Hawke’s is a strategy that works because she does not rely on conjuring excuses that do not exist.”

“And you have your Grey Warden papers,” says Varric.

Anders nods. “I do. Perhaps… perhaps that’s why I’m able to carry on like this. If Hawke or Merrill were to attempt any of this,” he waves his arm to gesture towards the entire clinic, “then the Templars would no doubt be on their doorstep. I won’t deny that it’s a privilege, to be able to live this way.”

“Privilege?” Varric echoes.

“Yes, just as it’s a privilege of  _yours_  to be able to walk anywhere you please and be safe from the Templars.”

Damn Blondie and his insistence that Varric actually  _think_  about these things. It  _would_  be awfully difficult for the Knight Commander to build a strong enough case to come after him. He thinks of Anders, who had to sign up for a lifetime subscription to Deep Roads expeditions just so that the Templars would stop dragging him back to the Circle. He thinks of Merrill, and how awful it must feel for someone so proud of who she is to lie about her culture, if it makes for a good enough excuse to be left alone.

He thinks of Hawke, and a lifetime of making herself out to be weaker, lesser than she is, because it’s better to be seen as someone frail and weak than as someone whose powers could destroy them all.

* * *

“It was easier when Bethany was with us,” says Carver on one of the days Varric has gotten him sufficiently drunk enough to talk about the third Hawke sibling who never made it to Kirkwall. What little Varric knows of Bethany Hawke comes entirely from Carver’s drunken ramblings — Hawke never talks about her, and will always change the subject when it looks like the conversation will approach that subject. “She and Sister… they kept each other in check, I think.”

“How so?” Fenris asks, a hard edge to his voice belying his disbelief that two mages could be trusted at all to exist by themselves, without supervision. Anders will push back, and Merrill will deflect it. Hawke will ignore it because that is just what she does with everyone who suggests that her very existence should be a source of fear and disgust. Varric knows, logically, that Fenris does not hate her — one or both of them wouldn’t be here if he did — but he wonders if maybe she should push back anyway.

“Oh, you know,” says Carver, waving his hand. “The Templars would’ve needed a  _really_  strong case to come after two delicate farm girls.” Varric has seen this before, in how seamlessly Hawke falls into step behind her brother — innocent and needing protection in everyone’s eyes but their own.

“I can’t imagine two women living on a farm would appear particularly… delicate,” says Aveline, sipping from her mug. Maybe they hadn’t looked all that delicate, back when they all fled Ferelden together — Aveline would know.

“Maybe,” says Carver, “but they’d be left alone anyway.”

Isabela grins, and leans over so that her face is mere inches away from his. “In no small part due to such a strong,  _protective_ —“

“Oh, Mother was downright terrifying,” Carver says with a firm nod that knocks his head directly into Isabela’s. Varric snorts into his drink, as Isabela gives an almighty pout and slinks away, rubbing her forehead. But there is some truth to what he’d said — Leandra Hawke is certainly terrifying in her own right, for a civilian. There’s something hilarious about picturing this woman staring down a Templar and triumphing.

Carver sighs, effectively dispelling any sort of mirth from the situation. “But…” he says slowly, his voice thick with emotion and something too uncomfortably close to tears. “Sister would work herself up so much just…  _worrying_ , and Bethany would always know exactly what to say to talk her down. I think… maybe, if they were ever to be taken away to the Circle, then they’d at least have each other... but now, that’s not possible.”

It wouldn’t have been possible even then, Varric doesn’t say — because Templars are not, and have never been in the business of keeping mages and their loved ones together. He tries very hard not to think about Anders, his hand in his former lover’s chest as the brand on Karl Thekla’s forehead stripped away everything he was.

“I think I would’ve liked to meet her,” says Merrill, sweetly. “Your other sister sounds like a wonderful person.”

Carver smiles wistfully. “She really was.”

* * *

—but the thing is, sometimes it’s hard to tell when Hawke is exaggerating her old injury, or if her bad leg is genuinely that, well, _bad_ : he catches her limping in Hightown one day, with nary a Templar in sight. As awful as some of the Chantry sisters can be, they’ve never made it their business to rat out people like her, even if they’ll quietly stand by when the Templars do get involved. Hawke may not pretend that it's the opposite, but she's a known quantity in Kirkwall — maybe not with the most squeaky-clean reputation, but nevertheless as someone willing to get her hands dirty to  _help_.

Still, Varric goes to her, and makes sure he’s in her line of sight before grabbing her elbow to steady her. “All right, Hawke?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, smiling, which is as close to an admission as he can get that she is, indeed, not fine. She shifts her weight, letting him bear the brunt of it. “There was just one thing I needed to finish up first.”

He pulls her over to a bench under an awning, a little ways away from the Chantry, and sits her down. He can’t see how bad it is, under her boots, but she stretches her bad leg out before her and lets it fold to the side. “It’s usually better than this,” she confesses. “I overdid it yesterday. Anders gave me a tonic to help with the pain, but I’ve been saving it.”

He almost wants to ask what she’s saving it  _for_  — but she’s so very close to getting the fifty sovereigns she needs for the expedition, and there’s no telling how long they’ll be down there. Anders wouldn’t be able to make it for her again, once they're ready to leave. “I don’t think he’d mind if you asked him to make you more,” Varric says anyway.

“He’s already doing so much,” she says. “I don’t want to add any more to his troubles than I already have.”

Varric doesn’t tell her that she wouldn’t be adding to anyone’s troubles — that she’s already done more than enough to earn her place among them. Kirkwall has always been an absolute pit, but a Kirkwall without her, he thinks, would be an awfully sad and desolate place — even if that’s exactly the kind of Kirkwall he’s made his home until very recently. “How did that happen anyway?” he asks gesturing towards her leg.

She laughs, and leans just a little bit more into him. “It’s… kind of silly, actually,” she says. “I fell off the roof of a barn when I was little. Father was away from the village at the time, and by the time he came back, it was too late for him to heal it completely. Nothing exciting like running from Templars or fighting abominations, I’m afraid.”

Varric looks down at her bad leg and says, “Huh… And you just… learned to deal with it?”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice,” she says. “I didn’t intend to remain helpless and delicate forever.”

“But it still bothers you sometimes.”

“Occasionally… but I know how to deal with it. It’s just as much a part of me as magic, at this point.” Varric watches as she bends down to tap her ankle twice with one finger. Something vaguely green shimmers around it, and he wonders if he would have noticed at all, had he not been paying attention. “You saw nothing,” she whispers conspiratorially, smiling. Then she stands up, stretching her arms behind her, and says, “Mother knew, this morning. She told me to just stay home and rest, but did I listen? Of  _course_  not. She and Carver are going to be so angry…”

“Or,” Varric says, “you could just lay low for a bit at the Hanged Man.” He’s pretty sure he knows the tonic Anders had given her — Anders made sure to give the same to everyone who accompanies Hawke on her errands, for precisely this reason.

She laughs. “Sounds like a solid plan. Thank you, Varric.”

He offers her his arm, and lets her lean against him all the way back to Lowtown.


End file.
